


make your mothers proud

by tennantbutt



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1477426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tennantbutt/pseuds/tennantbutt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The Winter Soldier was born in 1945, and that's all he knows."<br/>James Buchanan Barnes' recovery after the helicarriers fell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	make your mothers proud

**Author's Note:**

> i watched tws for the second time this week. it's slowly turning into a problem

The man in the museum has his face, but it’s not him.

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes died in 1944.

The Winter Soldier was born in 1945, and that's all he knows.

 

Every night he wakes up screaming.

He feels them fusing his skin with metal, hears the crunch of every bone he’s snapped, sees blood pooling around every body he’s put on the ground and stepped over to get to his next target.

Sometimes he feels wind rushing around his body as he falls.

Other times his arm is warm from being wrapped around someone smaller, though he isn’t sure who.

(He figures it out eventually.)

 

He sees a ‘HELP WANTED’ sign at a gas station far away from New York City, where no one knows him. The manager looks him up and down, his arms covered by a leather jacket and gloves, before giving him the job, murmuring about the first applicant they’ve had in weeks.

His nametag says ‘James’. He’s not sure who he is anymore.

 

Soon he’s not sleeping in parks anymore. He rents an apartment in a dangerous side of town, but the rent’s cheap and he keeps to himself and if some kids say something to him he has enough strength to throw them through a brick wall.

Next he goes to a diner, tries a hamburger and fries. It’s the first meal he can remember that isn’t Hydra-made slush or two slim jims and a power bar that he nicked from somewhere. He thinks it’s the closest he’s been to happy.

 

He ties his hair back, steals a baseball cap and some civilian clothing and goes back to the museum. Sometimes once a week, sometimes every few months.

There are seven men painted on the wall. He can only remember one of them, shouting at him as he plunges, further, further, further, until everything goes black.

 

He doesn’t know how to shave.

Hydra did it for him; if it was a long enough mission his stubble would turn into a beard and he’d lean back in the chair as they worked on his arm and ran a blade over his face before freezing him.

He pushes too hard at the jawline and there’s a gash at the bottom of his face. He crunches the plastic razor in his hand and shatters the mirror, breathing heavily with his hands gripping the edges of the sink.

He opens the window and steps on to the fire escape. It’s snowing. He can feel the snowflakes melt in little circles on his right arm. He feels nothing on his left.

 

Six months.

He cuts his own hair.

He thinks maybe he should just cut it all off. He doesn’t.

He puts the scissors away with two inches gone.

 

When he has Christmas weekend off, he goes to Stark Tower and walks right in. Nobody stops him. They just look.

The man in the metal suit lands in front of him and raises his hand, ready to fire.

“I’m not here to fight.” James Barnes says.

Iron Man holds his position. “Sorry if I don’t believe you.”

James Barnes turns around and walks out, but he can hear Iron Man raising his face plate and can feel the eyes on his back as he leaves.

He doesn’t return.

 

Nine months.

He reads. Articles, books, encyclopedias. They all talk about who he once was. American soldier and Russian assassin.

Now when he sleeps he can see a scrawny boy standing next to him. He doesn’t know how long he’s known him.

 _Bucky,_ he says. Just like the man on the bridge. _Bucky Bucky Bucky._

He’s so little. But he never backs down from a fight.

(He starts throwing himself between the boy and whoever he’s fighting. All these dreams, and he can never make out his face. He just knows he has to protect him.)

 

A year.

Two more inches gone.

He can remember more, now. He can see the scrawny boy’s face. He remembers Christmas dinners, two funerals, throwing pillows at each other and laughing.

He remembers shipping out as he leaves his friend behind.

 

He drinks. Sometimes at the bar a girl hits on him, but they never get far before she sees his metal arm and runs. He doesn’t think he could go through with it anyway.

He stops introducing himself as James, and goes by Bucky.

 

One night, he’s reading on the couch. His hair is tied up behind him and his scotch is on the coffee table in front of him.

There’s a knock on the door. He thinks it must be the landlord, coming to collect the rent early.

It’s the man on the bridge.

“ _Bucky_.” And then he pulls him into a crushing hug. It takes a minute, but Bucky squeezes back.

 

They’re sitting in Steve’s room in Stark Tower. The window’s open, and it’s brisk, but Bucky is safe in the chair in the corner of the room with his elbows on his knees.

“I was looking for you,” Steve says. “I was looking for you for so long, Buck. And then Tony said you’d come by and I used every method I could to find you, but you were gone.”

Bucky looks at him. “I didn’t want to be found.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Didn’t work out too well for you.”

Bucky looks back down but Steve can see the hint of a smile on his lips.

 

He quits his job at the gas station and takes up permanent residence in Stark Tower. Banner finds a way to reach into his brain and “pull the memories out”, he says. It works. He remembers everything.

After each session he comes out gasping for air, the sound of gunshots entering their mark mixed with Steve’s voice when they were kids. He never can make out where or when he is, and there are scars on his tongue from biting back screams.

Each time, Banner asks him if he wants to stop. Bucky says no.

He starts sleeping in Steve’s room.

 

He lets Steve cut his hair.

There’s a lot that comes off, and he has to keep his eyes closed the whole time, but when it’s done he almost looks like that picture at the museum.

Steve smiles and runs a hand through it.

"Still better-looking than you," Bucky says, and Steve laughs as he puts the scissors away.

 

Their first kiss isn’t really their first kiss, but after decades on ice, they both decide they can call it that.

Bucky sleeps in Steve’s bed now, and Steve holds him against his chest as he turns and murmurs in his sleep.

One of the first nights he wakes up screaming. Steve jolts awake, runs his fingers through Bucky's hair and sits up with him as he pants. “Hey, hey. I’m here. There’s no one that can hurt you. Not while I’m around.”

Bucky flops his head back down on his pillow, and Steve lies back down next to him.

“It used to be me saying that to you,” Bucky murmurs.

“I told you. I joined the army.”

“Remember that one time when we were kids and I made you go see _The Unkown_ with me?” Bucky asks, as he turns to look at Steve.

“Yeah, and I had nightmares for a week,” Steve laughs.

“Promise we’ll always do this for each other?” Bucky looks Steve up and down, and neither of them say anything.

They're both sweaty, with tired eyes and mussed-up hair, but Bucky thinks Steve must be the most beautiful man in the world. He rolls over real close to him, and wonders if Steve tastes like he smells.

"I love you, Buck. I always have and I always will." Just like that, and Bucky's breath hitches and he smiles and rolls on top of Steve.

He leans down and presses his lips to Steve's, finally, _finally_. He tastes like alcohol and dessert and home, home, home and the way Steve threads his fingers through Bucky's hair is almost too much right now and he might not be able to get the words out unless he pulls back right now.

"I love you too, punk."

 

(Years later, when they get married like they never could in 1940, that’s exactly what Steve promises.)


End file.
